1

THE MAN THE OTHER SURFERS called Cash was about to bring Rina Calhoun to an orgasm and he wasn't even in the same room. Not in person, anyway.

She had to remember to thank him for that. Later. After she was done watching him fly through the deep blue waves in all his perfect, lean-muscled glory on the celluloid big screen. After she'd caught her breath and composed herself, since she'd already locked the door and turned down the lights completely, and after she'd made her own copy of this segment of the videotape to take home with her for those long, lonely nights.

Whoever said documentary filmmaking had loftier, more satisfying rewards than making money was definitely onto something.

Someone that talented on a surfboard, someone with that much…balance, well, such prowess had to extend to other areas, didn't it? The thought of that extreme talent translating into the bedroom made the small area, where she'd been working all afternoon, suddenly stifling. In spite of the air-conditioning. The film equipment, which included various industrial computers, always ran hot, but this was ridiculous. She pulled her long hair back and off her neck and fanned herself with the folder that held the contract and terms of the short documentary.

Where on earth did the cameraman find this guy? He was the best part of this footage, which was saying a lot since it focused on filming some of the biggest waves she'd ever seen and the surfers crazy enough to hang ten on them.

Cash's segment focused on demonstrating the evolution of the sport into something called extreme surfing. The cameras had followed him and others as they were towed into the most dangerous waters she'd ever seen, and showcased them riding the waves out. And occasionally, wiping out. Hard.

Very, very hard chest. And arms. And abs.

She couldn't stop following his every single move. He mesmerized her by the way he swam, talked, moved as if he walked on water and owned those waves. In command and in control, the type of man she'd always fantasized about, but was never able to find in real life. Because, in the light of day and off the screen, most of the bad boys she'd met were really just plain bad, and did nothing to live up to their hype. The only thing they did tend to do was believe their own press. That was part of the reason she went for the calmer ones, with steady, regular jobs and steady, regular techniques in bed.

Which was why she was still unattached and unsatisfied. The perennial, hard-working good girl. And all work and no play was smothering her, until today.

She fiddled with the knobs on the control panel, bringing in sharp contrasts between the waves and Cash. She used a series of slow-motion special effects to make it appear that the wave was spraying the viewer the way it had apparently sprayed the camera screen. Zoot, the cameraman, must've been very close to the action on this one. And she could tell that filming Cash had been a last-minute decision, since Zoot's attention, and the bulk of the film he'd dumped on her, had been of jet skiers and body boarders.

This video was the intended fourth in a series of documentaries, all of which fell under the heading, Going to the X-treme: Bigger, Faster, Better. This portion of the series dealt with the extreme side of water sports. She'd been the editor for the entire series, which included segments on drag racing, parachuting and bungee jumping. But nothing she'd seen so far in her year on this project brought her as close to the edge as Cash had.

She didn't understand how something that dangerous could still hold the moniker of sport, but she had to admit that watching it was exhilarating. To actually be the one on the surfboard must be an adrenaline rush like nothing she'd ever considered experiencing.

She rewound the tape again, added a graphic and, save for the sound sweetening, she was done with the rough cut of the last segment. The most important segment, the piece that was always completed first, since it set the tone of the entire video for the editor. The piece that had to be shown to Vic for approval, because even though he trusted her, he was a control freak, and ultimately, the one in charge.

The doorknob rattled, and a voice called, "Are you alone in there?"

"Sort of," she called back, and propelled the chair on wheels across the short distance to unlock and open the door. Stella Taylor stood on the other side balancing containers that held their lunch and two sodas. She wore a bikini, a pareo and smelled like suntan lotion.

"Oh, good, I'm starving." Rina grabbed the food from Stella and placed it on a desk, away from all the equipment. She took one of the cold sodas and placed it against her cheek. "I see you've had time for the beach."

"Hey, I needed to go over the post-production script. I needed light. And you're way too preoccupied with your work," Stella said, as only Stella could. Immediately, Rina knew her friend was morphing from scriptwriter to budding mystic and astrologer, and prepared herself for the coming lecture.

"Funny, I thought we were sent here to work," she countered.

"All work and no play will not help your aura. You need another outlet."

"You're not going to pull out the tarot cards again, are you?"

Stella eyed her. "You don't need a reading, sweetie. You need to get laid."

"Enough." She put her hand up before her friend could continue. "I don't need sex right now. I need to finish this video because we need to get our grant."

Copyright © 2007 by Stephanie Tyler.